t only to be governed: the higher and nobler
qualities of national life that make for ideals and effort and achievement
become atrophied and the nation is decadent.

A fourth consideration is that in the nature of things all government must
be imperfect because men are imperfect. Every system has its shortcomings
and inconveniences; and these are seen and felt as they exist in the system
under which we live, while the shortcomings and inconveniences of other
systems are forgotten or ignored.

It is not unusual to see governmental methods reformed and after a time,
long enough to forget the evils that caused the change, to have a new
movement for a reform which consists in changing back to substantially the
same old methods that were cast out by the first reform.

The recognition of shortcomings or inconveniences in government is not by
itself sufficient to warrant a change of system. There should be also an
effort to estimate and compare the shortcomings and inconveniences of the
system to be substituted, for although they may be different they will
certainly exist.

A fifth consideration is that whatever changes in government are to be
made, we should follow the method which undertakes as one of its cardinal
points to hold fast that which is good. Francis Lieber, whose affection
for the country of his birth equalled his loyalty to the country of his
adoption, once said:

"There is this difference between the English, French, and Germans:
that the English only change what is necessary and as far as it is
necessary; the French plunge into all sorts of novelties by whole
masses, get into a chaos, see that they are fools and retrace their
steps as quickly, with a high degree of practical sense in all this
impracticability; the Germans attempt no change without first recurring
to first principles and metaphysics beyond them, systematizing the
smallest details in their minds; and when at last they mean to apply
all their meditation, opportunity, with its wide and swift wings
of a gull, is gone."

This was written more than sixty years ago before the present French
Republic and the present German Empire, and Lieber would doubtless have
modified his conclusions in view of those great achievements in government
if he were writing to-day. But he does correctly indicate the differences
of method and the dangers avoided by the practical course which he ascribes
to the English, and in accordance